Case study: PR lessons from a water crisis

The community where I live recently experienced an unfortunate lesson in crisis communications management — what not to do. This episode illustrated how good people with the best of intentions can make bad decisions. Fortunately, they recovered from their missteps.

Someday this episode might become a case study for public relations and student management. In the meantime, it is relevant for school communicators, even though the primary actors were city and state officials.

A quick bit of background: City officials found a water contamination problem on a Friday before a three- day holiday weekend. They waited until late Tuesday before issuing a health advisory. Residents were livid at the delay. So, too, were the elected city councilors who had been assured the issue was minor.

Meanwhile, the school district had reacted well, updating parents and providing bottled water for vulnerable students and staff. That is the advantage of having well-honed communication protocols in place, ones that can be adapted to different situations.

The issue involved cyanotoxins found in the city’s treated drinking water — the first time this had happened in our state. Those toxins were produced by algae blooms in the city’s reservoir. For healthy adults, there was little danger; the concern was for small children, the elderly, medically fragile individuals and pets.

Several weeks and millions of engineering dollars later, following are the critical lessons for communicators.

Have the right people in the room

Scientific experts from the city and state went by the book, following federal guidelines that a health advisory was not yet called for. But, as the state health director subsequently acknowledged, no one was having the related conversation about when and how the public should be notified.

In retrospect, the public awareness and notification discussions should have been happening contemporaneously with the scientific discussions. By not wanting to unnecessarily alarm the public, officials inadvertently created a backlash that damaged the city government’s credibility.

If city and state officials had told residents what they knew so far about the potential water problem, residents could have made their own decisions about whether to trust the water or start buying bottled water.

Remember that time and transparency are of the essence in these situations. Word will leak anyway, especially in our current era of social media explosiveness. When officials are slow or hesitant to go public, social media will fill the information gap with rumor and speculation.

Don’t wait to make adjustments

Officials quickly learned from their mistakes. A few days later, potential contamination was found in another town’s water supply downriver. In this case, officials immediately informed the public while also explaining that further testing was needed. Indeed, the initial test turned out to be a “false positive,” and the water remained healthy.

Have a coherent message

In a crisis situation, the messaging needs to be simple but not simplistic. It should include: This is what you need to do now, here is what is mandatory and what is suggested. This is whom to contact — online, phone, email, text and in person — for help and additional information.

It can be helpful to run draft messages past representatives of the target audience, such as parents, for their suggestions on whether the messaging is clear.

In my community’s case, the initial messaging was confusing. Officials tried to simultaneously warn people against drinking the water while reassuring them it remained safe for most people. The wording made sense to the experts but not to the public.

Communication improved once officials set up a joint information center that included city, county, school district, state and federal communicators. It started out as a virtual center with officials sharing information online but transitioned into a traditional crisis response center with agency representatives in the same room. That enabled them to share ideas, make decisions faster and respond to social media almost instantaneously. Most important, their messaging was consistent and complementary instead of contradictory.

Prepare to serve the entire community

The school district says nearly 60 native languages are spoken in students’ homes. Yet, the city initially distributed announcements in English only, belatedly adding Spanish before realizing other language speakers also were impacted.

The joint information center reached out to representatives of those communities, finding translators and influential leaders to spread the message about the health advisory. That included making videos in different languages.

Officials now realize they need to develop an extensive list of translators and communication methods for reaching the full community.

Involve elected officials

Like school boards, city councils do not — and should not — run the day-to-day operations. But, those city councilors, as well as school board members, are links to the community. From the outset, they should be provided with straightforward, current information so they can answer their constituents’ questions.

Go beyond the norm

Use a variety of distribution channels to get the word out, including chambers of commerce, neighborhood associations, houses of worship, service organizations, school clubs and other groups. Ask businesses and other entities to display key information on their reader boards.

Depending on the situation, this also can be a valuable time to use student and youth organizations — National FFA Organization, DECA Inc., student government, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and others — that foster good communication skills and public interaction.

Plan your crisis communications before you have a crisis. To start, go back to the first point in this essay, having the right people in the room. Someone needs to be asking:

  • Whom else should we contact?
  • Will this messaging be clear to laypeople?
  • How can we expand and speed distribution of the information?
  • What could go wrong? How do we cover all the bases to make sure it goes right?
  • What will the public want from us?

Contributed by Dick Hughes, communications consultant. Contact him at thehughesisms@gmail.com.

Communications planning 101: How to develop a strong communications plan to guide your work

As we look ahead to the coming school year, many of us are making plans and outlining goals for next year. This is a perfect time to develop communications plans — either for your overall communications efforts or for specific campaigns or projects.

But what makes a strong communications plan? The following step-by-step guide outlines the key elements often included in communications plans. It also provides some tips on how to best use the plan to support and enhance your work.

Goal

Starting out with an overarching goal or vision statement will help guide and ground your planning efforts. What is your ultimate goal around your communications program or effort? What type of tone do you want to set?

Objectives

Clearly establishing your core objectives is critical for any effective planning effort. What is it you want to achieve?

Whenever possible, develop SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) goals or objectives. This will help you develop a plan that can truly assist in your day-to-day communications efforts. For more on drafting SMART goals, see http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/42809 or http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/49500.

Aim to develop somewhere between four and 10 objectives. Identifying too many can make it difficult to track progress and allocate sufficient time and resources.

Target audiences

Next, you need to identify your key audiences. Who are you trying to communicate with? With whom do you need to engage to achieve your objectives and reach your goal? Common education-related audiences include:

  • parents;
  • students;
  • educators: classroom educators, school/district administrators and other school/district staff;
  • business/industry partners;
  • community-based organizational partners;
  • higher education partners;
  • community members;
  • media: print, radio and TV.

Key messages

Establishing some key message statements in advance can help ensure consistency and prepare you to respond quickly to questions or issues that arise. If messaging is going to differ by audience — which it often does — it generally is a good idea to create audience-specific messaging as well as general, overarching statements.

Make sure your messaging aligns between audiences but is appropriate to the needs of each group. For example, parents and teachers may both need to know about a new district program, but the level of detail provided may differ.

As you develop your messages, think about what each audience needs to know most. Focus on simple, clear, plain language. Anticipate questions or issues that may arise and prepare statements that you can quickly adapt. When possible, run your audience-specific messaging by someone from the target audience to see if you are hitting the mark.

Strategies

Now you are ready to outline your key strategies. How are you going to achieve your objectives? Strategies are generally high-level and could include things like improving outreach to parents, improving engagement with students, strengthening community/partner relationships or improving supports or opportunities for educators. Again, keep the number of strategies manageable and realistic.

Tactics

This is where you get more detailed. What tactics and tools will you use to pursue your strategies in the advancement of your objectives?

Common tactics and tools include: social media posts; online communications efforts; electronic communications such as emails and e-newsletters; reports or publications; print materials; media coverage/ media relations; events; community forums/listening sessions; peer-to-peer outreach; partner engagement; one-on-one meetings; featuring student voice/images; and purchasing ads.

The list goes on. Be as detailed as you can about the tools you plan to use to advance your communications efforts.

Metrics

In order to track the effectiveness of your communications efforts, you will need to establish clear metrics. Metrics can include:

  • communications sent out on time or according to schedule;
  • hosting a target number of presentations, forums or trainings;
  • increasing numbers of people receiving electronic communications;
  • increasing click-through rates on your website or communications links;
  • change in attitude based on survey data or focus group responses;
  • achieving a specific goal, such as bond passage or increased participation in summer meals.

Communications matrix

It often is helpful to put the various elements of your plan into a matrix format, so you can easily see how each tactic will be used to support your objectives and goal. A strong matrix will provide detail on each tactic, the audiences to be targeted, the delivery channel, time frame, responsible party and associated metrics. Below are a few lines of a sample matrix:

Tactic Target audience Delivery channel Time frame Responsible party Metric Objective
Website Parents, educators, community members, business and higher education partners Online Website content developed by June 2018. Website launched by late August 2018 Communications coordinator, IT staff Website developed and launched on schedule, including useful content and resources Aligns to objectives one and four
Press releases Media Email As needed, ongoing Communications coordinator Increased positive media coverage Aligns to objectives one through six
Listening sessions Parents, students, community members In person Starting summer 2018. Continuing in 2018-19 school year Communications coordinator, key partners Increased sign-ups for emails/ newsletter, increased support for initiatives Aligns to objectives three and six

Budget

High-quality communications are not free. They take both staff time and money. Realistically assess the needs for your communications effort and identify the resources that will be allocated to support the work.

When possible, identify roughly how many hours of staff time weekly or monthly will be allocated to the project as well as how much money various elements will cost. If you want, you can even weave budget allocations into your communications matrix.

Making your plan work for you

Once you’ve created your plan, don’t just let it sit on a shelf collecting dust. Your communications plan — and particularly, your key messages and communications matrix — can help inform your communications efforts on a daily basis.

Connect the activities in your plan directly into your daily work plan, building out time to pursue the various activities and tactics you have laid out. Set reminders on your calendar to regularly check back with the plan. Are you achieving what you set out to achieve? Are you employing the various tactics? Are there elements of your plan that need to be updated based on new information or situational changes?

As you develop communications or messaging related to the plan’s topic, save them in a central location where you can easily access them. This will help save you time — and increase consistency — as you develop future materials.

Taking the time to plan ahead — laying out your goals, objectives, strategies and tactics, defining your audiences and setting clear metrics — will help you hit the ground running and approach your communications in a proactive and thoughtful manner.

Resources

Contributed by Crystal Greene, communications consultant

Increase support for your district by communicating with non-parents

In my work as a pollster with school districts for more than 17 years, I have found that one thing is clear: School districts do a great job communicating with and engaging their parents. Parents tend to be well-informed and in touch with issues facing their local school district, such as overcrowding, building conditions and academic performance.

On the other hand, non-parents or parents with children transitioning out of school are less well-informed. This voter group primarily includes individuals older than 45. Seniors, those older than 60, are the least informed about issues facing their local schools.

Talking to the people who vote

Why does this matter? The majority of registered voters in nearly every state are over 45 years old. Alaska, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin are the only exceptions.

Furthermore, more than 80% of frequent and perfect voters, those who have voted in at least three out of the last four elections or all of the last four elections, are older than 45. Drilling down these numbers even further, more than half of frequent and perfect voters are older than 60.

Again, why does this matter? Even though parents are generally favorable toward school district money measures, they are much less likely to vote. And, those parents who do vote don’t always vote the entire ballot, which means they may vote for the big issues and well- known candidates but may miss the school district levy measure. This undervote and unreliability of younger voter groups means school districts can’t solely rely on parents to carry their money measures to a win.

School districts are always in campaign mode

It is easy to forget that your district is always in campaign mode. As a public entity, you are always building support for your district, whether or not you are actively seeking approval of a levy. Overall community perceptions heavily influence the success or failure of a levy campaign.

How do you gauge the public perception of your district? Regular community perception surveys, generally conducted by telephone, can be an effective engagement tool.

These surveys test perceptions about district performance, knowledge of the physical condition of school buildings, budget shortfalls and district information sources. Also, asking what the community’s educational priorities are can ensure the district’s priorities are aligned with the community’s. If you implement a regular schedule of perception surveys, you will have baseline data to help you understand the information gaps you need to fill at election time.

The most effective ways to reach people

Your survey also will help you understand how to reach your public. While there is a trend to rely on social media and websites to communicate, keep in mind that non-parents do not have a reason to visit your social media pages or websites and are unlikely to go out of their way to find you. Newspapers, personal experience and word of mouth remain some of the most effective ways of staying in touch.

Positive local newspaper articles highlighting improved graduation rates, new or enhanced vocational and technical programs, individual student and staff achievements and/or awards, realized cost savings through energy efficiencies and other positive stories can go a long way toward maintaining positive community perceptions.

Individuals without children in school are less likely to have recently been inside school buildings and may have very little contact with parents, students or staff. Implementing programs to help them feel more included can be as simple as taking elementary and high school students into senior centers or independent living communities to perform music programs or inviting seniors to volunteer in the classroom, read to students in the library or serve as student mentors or classroom speakers.

Other strategies include hosting neighborhood barbecues at local schools, senior citizen proms, assemblies and luncheons to honor veterans as well as offering free senior passes to high school performances, athletic events or other school activities.

While it is true that parents will always be a great resource for support, an engaged, well-informed voter, regardless of whether he or she is the parent of a child in school, will be more supportive of future money measures than an ill-informed or uninformed voter. Furthermore, school districts that actively engage, educate and communicate with their older voter populations are inherently more successful than districts that do not.

The key to maintaining positive community relations is inclusive and regular community engagement and education that is sensitive to all of the demographics that make up your particular school district.

Contributed by Melissa Martin, communications consultant

Start the new year with welcome-to-school packets

When a new school year starts, schools put out the welcome mat with a variety of resources and information. Typical family outreach includes introductory letters from principals and teachers; back-to-school night events and open houses; and updated websites, with schedules, calendars, school supply lists and registration information.

Communication in any form is an important way to help create a welcoming atmosphere for families. With all of the pieces in one place, the information becomes a helpful resource packet that can serve as a reference for the new school year and a welcome for new students who join your school community throughout the year.

Create a great first impression

Schools that produce welcome packets make a great first impression. Often, it is the first contact parents have with schools. With this in mind, fill the welcome packet with the most informative resources and keep the tone friendly, helpful and accessible.

What’s in a welcome packet?

Repetition is a key to effective messaging. Your welcome packet should include the same information that you post on your website, but the packet format means that it is one easy-to-find handout.

To increase visibility and effectiveness, post the packet in its entirety or as a group of links in a separate section on your website. Include similar visual elements as your paper packet and give it the same name. For example, call it Welcome Packet for Our Families: Resources for the School Year.

As digital files, it will be a great reference for parents who need information on the go or can’t put their hands on their paper materials after the new school year is underway. Posting this information online also provides a helpful peek into your school practices for prospective parents.

Recommended content includes:

  • Welcome letter. A sample was published in the June/ July CommunicationPlus and is included following this article on page 12.
  • Key dates.
  • Invitation to back-to-school open house or parent night.
  • Parent tips for student success. Topics could include homework help, when to keep your child home for illness, screen-time guidelines and social media recommendations.
  • Parent/student handbook with issues like attendance policies, behavioral expectations and discipline procedures, immunization requirements, dress code information, bus times and contact information.
  • Volunteer opportunities.
  • Contact information.
  • Website and social media addresses.

Organize it for easy readability

Remember, the goal of your welcome packet is to make it easier for parents to connect with schools and feel like a valued member of the school community.

Make easy navigation through your packet a priority.

  • Include a list of content. It can be a cover page, table of contents or bulleted list of information in the principal’s letter. Make it easy to see what is included.
  • Images and graphics improve readability. The packet should be user-friendly and easy to scan. Consider having your district’s graphic designer, if there is one, create a template for schools to ensure the publication meets your design standards and is branded for your district.
  • Highlight your successes. People like to be part of a winning team. Leave room to boast about some of your special achievements and school highlights. Sharing your good news is a fast way to build school pride and a sense of ownership. Tell people where they can continue to find good news stories about your school and district throughout the year.
  • Consider including your school partners. If you have school partnerships that provide important services during the school year, consider including information from them in your welcome packets. This could include providers of after-school activities or athletic leagues, daycare and fundraising reward program information, such as eScrip or store reward programs that allow you to designate a school beneficiary.

Continue to welcome families all year

School welcome packets are useful resources all year long. The back-to-school packet should be easy to update. Add registration materials, revise the principal’s letter and update the list of key dates to keep them relevant as the year goes on. Hand them out to families when new students show up to enroll.

Contributed by Marcia Latta, communications consultant

Sample back-to-school letter for your welcome packet

Date

Dear parent or guardian,

Welcome to a new school year! We are excited to see you, and we invite you to come to the school office if you have any questions or need any information to help you prepare for the first day. Our school office will be open (hours here and dates, if not open every day). You also may call us at (office phone number).

We hope this packet of information is a useful resource for you as you get ready for the school year and throughout the year. It also is posted on our website, and you can find additional information there and on our Facebook page (include addresses for each site). Both will be updated all year long.

We are looking forward to a great year, and we are excited to have your family join our school community.

Please contact me if you have questions or need assistance as you prepare for the coming year.

Sincerely,

(principal name)

principal

Training staff for communications roles

Another school year is upon us, and for many districts that means another round of budget cuts. The communications department is often one of the first to undergo funding cuts, but this decision can be fraught.

The unfortunate truth is that the communications department has an outsized ability to influence the school’s chances of bringing in more students and funding. Other departments do not have this ability. In fact, today’s communication departments need to be larger, not smaller.

The days when students simply attended the school district nearest their home are over. Today’s districts need to keep their current families happy and win over new students as well. A functional communications department is key to that. Unfortunately, school districts are finding themselves in the difficult position of needing more professionals but on a smaller budget.

Social media interns — yay or nay?

Pressed for resources, some districts are looking at hiring a social media intern. Unfortunately, this can carry hidden risks. Not only is the communications department the primary interface between your district

and community, which you’re entrusting to someone still learning the process, but your intern may decide to take a full-time position at any moment, leaving a sudden communications gap.

Additionally, there are strict labor rules for how and when unpaid interns can be used. There are clear guidelines from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) about the “limited circumstances” that allow use of unpaid interns. Schools are not excluded from the limitations.

“Courts have used the ‘primary beneficiary test’ to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee under the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). In short, this test allows courts to examine the ‘economic reality’ of the intern-employer relationship to determine which party is the ‘primary beneficiary’ of the relationship,” according to the DOL website (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/47237).

According to DOL, courts have identified the following seven factors as part of the test:

  • The extent to which the intern and employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee and vice versa.
  • The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
  • The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
  • The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
  • The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
  • The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
  • The extent to which the intern and employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

Transformers: Administrative assistants in disguise

What most districts end up doing to solve their budget shortfall is adding communications duties

to an employee’s current responsibilities. In reality, communications for the majority of districts often is handled by only one full-time communications staff member or even fewer.

School administrative assistants, superintendent’s assistants and office managers are the usual suspects. Often they already have experience with getting blurbs and bits of news for newsletters, so expanding their role is often not much of a stretch, especially if they are already social media savvy.

Communications is more than just being a good “Instagrammer,” though. It’s knowing which stories and images express your district’s goals and successes in the best way possible. It also means being able to take a long view on whether communications are helping to achieve those goals. It would be a shame to start promoting a bond for a new computer lab only to discover the community didn’t even know computer classes were available at your high school, since your administrative assistant or communications department had spent the last two years primarily focused on sports-related news and information. Ouch!

Let’s talk communications minimums

Consider having your new communicator take an intro to journalism class online or at the local community college. While anyone can write information, journalists know some tricks of the trade to keep people engaged in your district’s stories.

Your new communicator also may learn how to write stories that support his or her great photos. The minimum communications a small district should try to do is:

  • have an informative website;
  • send out routine print materials;
  • provide meaningful agendas for parent-engagement activities.

If you’re doing that, great! Sometimes, that is as much as a one-person public relations (PR) shop can manage, especially if it is juggling additional non-PR responsibilities.

Making day-to-day communications easier

One way to ensure communication needs are met is to make sure your staff members on the ground know who is handling the news now, and what kind of news your newly minted PR person is looking for to achieve the district’s goals.

Make sure time is carved out of a staff meeting for him or her to talk about what kind of news the district wants, so teachers and administrators can be on the lookout for it. Teachers often are good about congratulating students about honors, such as an Eagle Scout badge or a National Merit Scholarship, without realizing this kind of information makes the district look good.

Finally, all staff members sharing student-related information should be properly trained on the requirements about safe-guarding student identifying information. All staff members should be made aware of relevant policies, procedures and district obligations prior to posting anything about a student online.

Contributed by Megan J. Wilson, Los Angeles-based freelance writer and communications consultant

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